D2/D3 items might be much more harder to get now, but instead of only having saying 50k per realm fighitng for items now (possibly 200k in diablos peak per realm? Idk), you will have literally millions doing it now. It's just a matter quantity getting those items. As a whole, you yourself might not be very lucky and could spend days farming an item, but that doesnt mean the rest of the region is the same. Eventually, with bots as well as random drops, you will see those "rare" items become pretty abundant on the ah in a few months.

It was more than 200K but I couldn't find an accurate number. It won't be "millions" there are still major regions that might have a couple million in each region in which you can't use the others AH. Please keep in mind that casuals won't play far enough to find what Diablo vets call "worthy AH gear" and casuals I bet will make up 70-80% of the player base. That millions just drastically dropped to hundreds of thousands divided up to multiple separate AH regions.

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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.

The OP has a point about weapon saturation, especially since they are everlasting (at least until you break them down into forging materials). There is not going to be a silver bullet solution to address all of your concerns, but here are two suggestions:

1. Make all magical non-blue weapons soul bound (meaning, once you arm it, then it can no longer be used by another character). That way if somebody buys a Rare, they can't just use it and then resell it afterwards. That will change the supply from an infinite # to a finite #.

2. A big concern is people playing inferno and selling the blue inferno "junk" to non-inferno players. Inferno blue junk will probably be over powered in non-inferno games. The game shouldn't let you use Inferno equipment until you beat Hell. Granted, this will only affect level 60 characters.

D2/D3 items might be much more harder to get now, but instead of only having saying 50k per realm fighitng for items now (possibly 200k in diablos peak per realm? Idk), you will have literally millions doing it now.

There will not be millions of people on each region. WoW has been out for about 8 years and they only have about 10 million people. And that was never right off the bat. There will be millions buying it, but I only see a few hundred thousand and not a couple million after the first few months per region. And those level 60 legendaries are the ones to get and that wont be for a while because it is always your characters before anothers.

The RMAH is really a double edged bonus - not only do they make money from the transactions but they employ less people to deal with hacked accounts or reports of being cheated. People were getting taken advantage of quite regularly when dealing with ebay or other transactions.

#2 There is no way to predict the flow of items onto the RMAH. It will be a few months before enough people are farming Inferno to actual cause a drop in prices.

#3 I believe you are underestimating the demand for items. As long as there are people willing to purchase, the prices will not drop. I think that you are overestimating supply and underestimating demand, in essence.

Eventually, with bots as well as random drops, you will see those "rare" items become pretty abundant on the ah in a few months.

There is a really strong difference between rare and megarare. Believe me, perfect items will have a really low dropchance. I won't call out any numbers because people tend to take things for granted and I don't have any statistics, but there are so many variables that even with a high number of active players it will take quite a while to get the AH flooded with these items.
Besides, there are several assumptions that you need even months to aquire only one lvl 14 gem, without spending all your money just for the sake of getting it early (and even then its only 1 slot of maybe 8?9?).
In addition to this we will get a pvp patch some months after release. This will bring out new item requirements, like CC reduction, "stun on hit" sets and other innovations people will come up with. And even after this, people will get crafty and invent new item builds which require certain items to be even viable.

Without duping/bots in Diablo 2... finding most of the best items in the game took a very, very long time. You could farm things like Shako, Stormshield, Viperskin, etc. pretty easy. But if you wanted something like Crown of Ages it would take a very, very long time... even if you had good MF gear.

Then we get into the idea of how easy it became to farm in Diablo 2. But the reason it became so easy was everyone had great gear because of the bots/duping.

I think they've thought this through. It's going to be damn hard to find the "best items", especially when they want to make rares have more potential... and even if the economy does start to get bogged down, they can adjust drop rates/add new items to the game.

This may be true, and in a perfect world there would not be bots or farmers -- however this isn't the case. These things will exist and water down the economy.

Without reliable drop % information and without information regarding the % of the player base that will play to Inferno, the numbers that will play beyond 6 months and (on top of that) the % of those that will actually use the RMAH, this is all conjecture and speculation.

As much as it is important to speculate and hypothesise, getting all bent out of shape over something that may realistically never be an issue (or one that if it does occur then Blizz may be able to remedy) just seems a whole waste of time, effort and concern

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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain...

This may be true, and in a perfect world there would not be bots or farmers -- however this isn't the case. These things will exist and water down the economy.

As stated by many other posts in other topics (recently). The game is simply too complex for bots just to farm inferno, I think this is a reasonable assumption. The economy may be watered down for lower difficulties way down the road but hey all it will do is help casuals maybe play more or help gear up to possibly attempt inferno. As for farmers mixing in drop rates, uniqueness of items and their affixes, it's not low WoW where you can sit in one instance or spot for 10000 hours and keep getting the same item.

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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.

Without reliable drop % information and without information regarding the % of the player base that will play to Inferno, the numbers that will play beyond 6 months and (on top of that) the % of those that will actually use the RMAH, this is all conjecture and speculation.

As much as it is important to speculate and hypothesise, getting all bent out of shape over something that may realistically never be an issue (or one that if it does occur then Blizz may be able to remedy) just seems a whole waste of time, effort and concern

I'm not bent, im just theorizing what will happen. It's not going to stop me from playing the game.

I'm not bent, im just theorizing what will happen. It's not going to stop me from playing the game.

Wasn't specifically directed at you, just in general

Of course we all have our concerns regarding the game (some more realistic and serious than others) but until we actually get to grips with the game, it's systems and our fellow players, I feel we should take a step back and have a 'wait and see' attitude. Especially in a case such as this where there are just so many variables

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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain...

Quit a few things wrong with this as others have said but here are the main ones.

RMAH - If people spent real money on a item and it dissapeared people would flip ball sacks.

Rareity - Legit shit in D2 was hard as hell to find.

Replayability - The majority of people will never even touch inferno and the small percentage that does the majority of them will take months to complete it let alone farm it.

1-Yes, some people would get upset, but it wouldn't stop people from buying. As i mentioned, despite people knowing d2 ladders reset, they still spend good amounts of cash on d2 items. They know the items will only be relevent for a few months max, yet they still go ahead and purchase them.

2-Again, while rarity in d2 was pretty obvious on "exceptional" items, the userbase was much smaller, and it was much harder to trade in that game. Having a search for a rare item a few clicks away plus millions hammering away farming content are going to drastically change things.

3-I know everyone levels at different speeds, but i forsee inferno being beaten by people within a week. Again, this obviously doesn't account for everyone, but I would say within a month or two max a good chunk will have this done.

Without reliable drop % information and without information regarding the % of the player base that will play to Inferno, the numbers that will play beyond 6 months and (on top of that) the % of those that will actually use the RMAH, this is all conjecture and speculation.

As much as it is important to speculate and hypothesise, getting all bent out of shape over something that may realistically never be an issue (or one that if it does occur then Blizz may be able to remedy) just seems a whole waste of time, effort and concern

This. And you need to consider that there are random mods on items. So if you find the very best unique it will vary from 'crap' to 'godly'. Imagine windforce with more random mods then ml...

1-Yes, some people would get upset, but it wouldn't stop people from buying. As i mentioned, despite people knowing d2 ladders reset, they still spend good amounts of cash on d2 items. They know the items will only be relevent for a few months max, yet they still go ahead and purchase them.

2-Again, while rarity in d2 was pretty obvious on "exceptional" items, the userbase was much smaller, and it was much harder to trade in that game. Having a search for a rare item a few clicks away plus millions hammering away farming content are going to drastically change things.

3-I know everyone levels at different speeds, but i forsee inferno being beaten by people within a week. Again, this obviously doesn't account for everyone, but I would say within a month or two max a good chunk will have this done.

1) They were converted to softcore so they didn't lose thier items, there is no RMAH in hardcore, this point shouldn't be discussed anymore.

2) Again casuals make up a large % of players there won't be millions, it's no different than before. Finding end game items or perfect states will be just as difficult as D2.

3) This is were many people are divided but for the sake of the game I hope your wrong, I'm expecting clearing in a month farming in multiple months and this would be the elite not even the Diablo vet.

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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.

the point of d3 is not getting level 99 like diablo 2, but rather kill Diablo inferno.
ladder are useless,
but anyway, the real ladder gonna be on site that tracks down the acheivment date of all player and make a ranking out of it.

1-Yes, some people would get upset, but it wouldn't stop people from buying. As i mentioned, despite people knowing d2 ladders reset, they still spend good amounts of cash on d2 items. They know the items will only be relevent for a few months max, yet they still go ahead and purchase them.

2-Again, while rarity in d2 was pretty obvious on "exceptional" items, the userbase was much smaller, and it was much harder to trade in that game. Having a search for a rare item a few clicks away plus millions hammering away farming content are going to drastically change things.

3-I know everyone levels at different speeds, but i forsee inferno being beaten by people within a week. Again, this obviously doesn't account for everyone, but I would say within a month or two max a good chunk will have this done.

1) They were converted to softcore so they didn't lose thier items, there is no RMAH in hardcore, this point shouldn't be discussed anymore.

2) Again casuals make up a large % of players there won't be millions, it's no different than before. Finding end game items or perfect states will be just as difficult as D2.

3) This is were many people are divided but for the sake of the game I hope your wrong, I'm expecting clearing in a month farming in multiple months and this would be the elite not even the Diablo vet.

Well to be fair, while there isn't a RMAH in hc, that won't people from buying and selling via 3rd party sites and forums.